


A Crime Caper with Jack Rackham and Anne Bonny

by urcadelimabean



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Imprisonment, Near Death Experiences, Platonic Life Partnerships, Post Season 4, history fix-it for Jack’s death and Anne’s disappearance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-12
Updated: 2018-07-12
Packaged: 2019-06-09 05:22:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15260319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/urcadelimabean/pseuds/urcadelimabean
Summary: “Rackham was found guilty and hanged in Port Royal on 18 November 1720. There is no record of Bonny’s release or execution.”How Jack and Anne (didn't) meet their end.





	A Crime Caper with Jack Rackham and Anne Bonny

**Author's Note:**

> Big thanks to [xpityx](https://archiveofourown.org/users/xpityx/pseuds/xpityx) for betaing!!

"If you'd have fought like a man you wouldn't have to die like a dog." Anne's voice was hard in the quiet of the cell.

It had been the drinking that had been the problem. Jack had let the liquor go to his head, drinking with the crew, celebrating their latest victory. Anne and Mark had been the only ones sober enough to fight, but even they could not hold off an entire British troop.

So here they were, locked in prison, chained by the wrists, with most of their crew dead. The only three remaining were Jack Rackham, Anne Bonny and “Mary” Read--the three names which were sure to bring a crowd. That’s what was important, after all--the spectacle of their trial. Showing good Englishmen and women that even monsters could be brought to their knees.

They were due to be hanged tomorrow.

Jack sought Anne's hand in the darkness, making the manacles on his wrists clank against the stone floor. Despite her words she held his hand firmly.

"Partners till they put us in the fucking ground was what we said, wasn't it," Jack murmured. He heard Anne huff a sigh beside him.

They didn't talk for a while, just took comfort in each other's hands and shoulders leaning together.

"How do we get out of this one," Jack said as lightly as he could. He noticed that Anne's other hand was moving in the dim light, thumb brushing over Max's ring on her finger.

"Gotta think of something. Can't end like this.”

“No...no it can't,” Jack said more to himself than Anne. After a moment he turned to look at her. He took a deep breath. “Read thinks he can delay the sentence by saying he's with child. What if you were to--”

“Fucking hell, Jack, I ain't leaving you in here to die,” Anne hissed. “No. It ain't going to be one without the other.”

“Anne, think about this rationally. If worst comes to worst and there’s no other way to-”

“ _Fuck you,_ Jack,” Anne hissed with bitterness.

Jack closed his eyes and held her hand tighter. If there was no way to convince her to save herself, he'd have to think of a better plan so they could both live.

He thought and thought and decided to look around their cell once more. There were no windows, just three walls of stone and one of bars. There was a drunk fellow passed out in the corner--not very useful. At last Jack’s eyes fell on the liveried man down the hall from their cell, guarding the entrance. If there was no way for them to get _out_ of the cell...

“Got an idea,” he said suddenly.

“Hope it's better than your last one.”

“We’ll pretend to fight, draw the attention of that guard over there, get him in the cell somehow.”

“Yeah.”

Anne got to her feet, motioning for Jack to stay on the ground. He shielded face with his hands.

“Go on,” he whispered.

Anne struck his arm, making it look bad when she was only hitting him lightly. Jack pretended to wince in pain and cried out, “Someone help!”

Anne continued hitting him. Jack shielded his face, praying that this would work.

After a few moments, the noise began drawing the guard. Still shielding himself from Anne, Jack whispered, “Use that line about dying like a dog, that was good.”

“Right,” Anne murmured.

When the guard was within earshot, Anne kicked Jack in the ribs, somewhat gently. “If you'd have fought like a man you wouldn't have to hang like a dog!” she snarled.

Jack hid a grin. “Don't let her kill me!” he called, rolling away from her on the floor. “She's going to murder me! Help, for God's sake!”

The guard looked at him quizzically. “Why would I care?”

A good question. Thankfully, Jack had a good answer. “Because,” he hissed, moving away from Anne as quickly as he could, gripping the bars of the cell, “your superiors would be very displeased with you if we should die and there was no spectacle at the trial tomorrow! That’s the whole point, isn’t it! Think about it! And hurry up, man! I'd rather die quick in a noose than slowly and-- _ow_ \--painfully!”

“And you fucked Read,” Anne continued, striking Jack's arms which covered his head. “You cheating cunt!”

A good touch, given Read's lie about the pregnancy. The guard didn’t need to know the truth about Jack’s relationship with Anne, or Mark.

As soon as the guard opened the cell door Anne was on him. The struggle only lasted seconds but by the end of it the guard had shoved Anne away, and Jack stood there in confusion, knowing she easily could have killed him in ten different ways by now, weapons or no.

“I'll be watching you so don't try anything,” the guard warned. He closed the cell door again, seeming to think he had broken up a fight, and that that would be that. Funny to imagine Anne being dissuaded from a murder just because she’d been asked nicely.

“What in God's name--” Jack began.

Anne pulled a knife out of her coat. “Sshh. Got this off 'im when we was fighting.”

“But why is he still _alive_?” Jack hissed under his breath.

Anne glared at him. “Cause there's ten more outside that door out there and I have a fucking _plan_. That's why.”

“Why didn’t you tell me what it was?”

Anne approached the other prisoner in the cell. She was now out of the guard’s line of sight, close to the back wall in the shadows, and it was dark enough that Jack had to struggle to see what she was doing.

Anne poked the man with her foot, lying there on the floor. “Pissed drunk, looks to me,” she muttered, and knelt beside him.

“What in God’s name are you doing, Anne?” Jack whispered, and followed her.

She was testing the blade of the knife on her finger. It drew blood easily. The man had a scruffy beard covering his face, and Anne dragged him into more light before she began hacking it off with the knife, keeping her motions small to minimize the sound of the chains, until there was just the short patches of it to deal with.

Anne was good with a razor--she had helped Jack in that regard a few times over the years when he had injured his hands too badly to do it himself. Jack watched her curiously.

Holding the knife close to the man’s skin, Anne began shaping his beard into two long sideburns.

“Oh no,” Jack said under his breath.

When the sideburns were done to Anne’s satisfaction, she focused on the mustache and bit below the lower lip. Done, she leaned back to survey her work.

Their fellow prisoner was a heavier set man than Jack, but now with identical facial hair, he could make a somewhat older, wider Jack Rackham, as long as the viewer didn't know Jack personally. As drunk as could be, he lay on the floor unaware that he was now part of some grisly scheme.

“What’d the poor bastard do to get put in here?” Jack asked as an aside.

“Killed his own son for defending his wife after a beating.”

“Oh,” Jack groaned. “Good. He deserves whatever’s coming to him then.”

“So you get the plan, right, Jack?” Anne murmured. “They’re gonna hang this bastard in your place, give us more time to escape. None of ‘em know you too well by looks, so when they come to get you I’ll point to him.”

“What, are we just hoping the guard from tonight isn’t there to recognize me?”

“Usually change the guard during the night. Got a better plan?”

Jack sighed. “And you’ll plead the belly, I hope?”

“Only at the last minute. Don’t want us separated.”

Jack merely nodded.

Anne picked up her knife again. “So that just leaves one more thing to get done.”

“What’s that?”

Anne moved towards him and Jack scrambled backwards as he started to guess at her aim. “Oh. No!” Jack raised his hands defensively and groaned, “Must we really do this?”

“They’ll fucking grow back,” Anne hissed in disbelief. “Can’t have two Captain Rackhams in here, unless you’d like to hang? Yeah, _thought so_. Stay still.”

“No, I don’t like this,” Jack griped, but let Anne hold his chin and begin shaving from his ear to the middle of his cheek.

“Gonna look funny with these gone,” Anne murmured, and Jack narrowed his eyes at her.

“Darling, you’re not making this any easier.”

Anne hummed a laugh.

She switched to the other side, and Jack rubbed his shaved cheek with his hand, forlorn. “I've had these since I was _sixteen_!”

“Yeah, I remember,” Anne muttered.

Jack smiled at Anne's smile. Even in a bad situation like this, he couldn't help it. He took a deep breath and tried to calm his nerves.

When at last she was done, Anne stowed the knife in her coat. There was nothing for Jack to look in to see his reflection. He settled for touching his cheeks with his fingertips and stroking the place he would normally stroke his mustache.

After a few more preparations involving the swapping of clothes between him and their cellmate, there was nothing more to be done.

“I hope this works. I shouldn't like to die looking like this.” A morbid joke perhaps, but this was a morbid situation.

Anne huffed and leaned her back against the wall in the shadows. Quietly, she muttered, “‘Nough of that talk. Ain’t letting you die tomorrow.”

Jack took his place by her side and Anne dropped her head onto his shoulder. Jack pressed a kiss to her hair.

In low voices, they went over the plan once more. It didn't need to be said that they only got one shot at this. If they failed they would hang. Each time Jack considered it, the possibility felt even more chilling and real, igniting a animal feeling of protectiveness in him like he had rarely felt in the last few years of peace since Max had taken control of Nassau. He thought back to the time he and Anne had nearly died in Roger's ship. Things had looked bad then, but they'd survived, just barely, after all.

Jack clenched his hands as he shivered with remembered fear. This time, no matter what happened, he would make sure Anne didn’t get hurt like she had that time.

It was hard to tell the hour in the underground prison, but Jack figured it was late into the night. It was cold and uncomfortable enough without the thought of what would happen tomorrow. They fell into an uneasy sleep, leaning against each other, and at some point Anne shifted to curl her head in his lap. Jack brushed her hair back from her forehead and tried to fall back asleep.

 

The thud of guardsmen's boots against the flagstones woke them abruptly. Anne moved hastily away from Jack and motioned for him to stay put on the floor as she got to her feet.

Jack watched her give their cellmate a hard blow to the head. The man certainly wasn't going to be coherent any time soon.

“Rackham and Bonny,” said a sharp voice, “you two are coming with us.”

Jack counted twelve guards, keeping his eyes lowered as if he wasn’t paying any attention. Twelve men was more than enough to escort two chained prisoners, and about the number Anne had guessed. The guard from last night had been relieved.

Anne sneered at the man who had spoken. “Captain Rackham can't hear you, passed out where he is on the floor. As for me, I'm pleading my belly and I ain't going nowhere till the bastard's been hanged.”

“Thought you were his partner,” asked one guard, unnerved.

“Yeah, before he betrayed me,” Anne spat. “Wanted to kill ‘im, see it done myself last night, but when your man broke up the fight I realized I’d like it if he hanged front of a crowd better, for everyone t’ watch, since he always cared so much about his reputation.”

What a nice touch. Jack winced at the scrape of metal on metal as the cell door was opened. He hoped the guard from last night had mentioned to his comrades how Anne had attacked him--it would back up her story.

“Heard Rackham was a scrawny fellow,” one guard muttered.

Jack felt light-headed with nervousness. They were betting their whole lives on Jack's reputation glowing brighter in men's memories than his actual face. On one hand, most men couldn't possibly have seen his face in anything other than an inaccurate newspaper sketch, but on the other hand it would take just  _one_ having seen him in real life for everything to go wrong. It suddenly seemed like a terrible, godawful plan.

“Right, used t’ be,” Anne muttered, sneering. “I know my own partner, d’you hear? Or you think this sorry excuse for a man is Captain Jack Rackham?” She motioned to Jack, slumped against the wall in an attempt to diminish the size of his tall body, wearing the ill-fitting clothes of his cellmate just as the man was now wearing his. Lucky that Jack was in the habit of wearing loose trousers and a billowy linen shirt to combat the heat, or they wouldn’t have fit on the other man.

“What's your name?” one of the guards called to him.

“Roger Woods,” Jack replied distastefully. “I'm just a tailor.”

“Not a very good one by the looks o’ you. What's a tailor do to get locked up in jail?”

“Debt, don't you know?” Jack muttered, irritated.

“Right.”

The guards hauled their cellmate, the fake Jack Rackham, to his feet, and Jack’s heart pounded. The man was coming to just slightly, but the sharp knock to the head from Anne seemed to be keeping him disoriented for now.

Another of the liveried men put a hand on Anne’s shoulder and she snarled and shook him off. “I said I was pleading my belly. I ain’t goin’ nowhere till you’ve dragged that sorry excuse for a man out of my sight.”

Whether it was because of Anne’s threatening expression or her reputation for violence, the guard backed off. Two others held the drunk man by his arms. Four more flanked them as they began leading him away. With each thud of their boots, Jack was sure the whole plan would fall apart, and the men would turn and come back and take him instead.

At last their footfalls receded. Anne’s point had been to cut their number in half, because the longer the fight, the harder it would be to escape after. Jack could hardly believe they’d gotten away with it.

“You'll come with us, then,” one of the guards began.

As he reached to take her arm, Anne gave Jack that look--the one that said all hell was about to break loose--and then she spun on the guard behind her, slashing his throat before using his body to shove the man beside him. They both went down, dead man on top of the alive one, and Jack leapt to his feet and kicked the man unconscious.

Anne had already made short work of another man, and threw Jack a sword. He barely caught it in time to fend off what could have been a killing blow from another guard. The noise of their fighting would certainly bring more men if they didn't hurry.

Muscles aching from a night lying on hard stone, they fought as hard as they could, using swords, daggers, the chains on their own wrists. It was all a blur. Jack covered Anne’s back and struck with his sword, straight through his opponent’s chest, leaving him open to another attack. A guard moved to take advantage of his lack of defense. Anne quickly intercepted and drove her dagger into the man's ribs.

When it was done, Jack and Anne stood panting over the six men, aware than they had precious little time to waste.

They unlocked their manacles, and Jack shoved a few pistols in his belt. A quick run through the room past the hall, and they had to hide in a side corridor as the clatter of more men approached.

They ran as fast as they could after that. Sounds echoed back to them through the stone that their escape--or at least Anne's escape--had been discovered.

And then they were in the alleyway outside. It was still dim, an hour or so after dawn. They kept running, taking turns into other side streets and getting farther and farther away from the prison, stopping to check if they were being followed, then continuing on as quick as they could.

At last they stopped, out of breath, in the shadows. It was as good a hiding place as they would find. Jack pulled Anne quickly to his chest, blood still pounding from the excitement of the escape so that he didn't quite realize it when he started crying into her hair, drawing in quick breaths. Anne gripped him back hard.

“Told you, wouldn't let you get hanged.”

It shook Jack to hear how scared she sounded, even now that they were free, and he realized she'd been holding it together for his sake.

"I wasn't worried about myself _,_ "  Jack whispered. He wiped his eyes, straightened his ill-fitting clothes and then smoothed her hair back as she tilted her head to look up at him. “Partners till they put us in the ground,” he murmured, “but that day isn’t today, I don't think.”

Anne gave a brief nod, took her battered hat out of her coat and put it on her head to hide her hair, just like she had when they'd been young and she’d passed for a boy. From under the brim, she offered a sharp smile that made Jack's heart warm in his chest.

“Right. Now we find Read.”

 

They had to lay low most of the day. News of “Rackham's death” reached them, and though their plan had gone off without a hitch in that respect they were still cautious. Anne traded her coat for some old sailor's garments Jack bought in town, just to be safe. They spent a few hours preparing supplies--these were not so much purchased as lifted--and waiting for nightfall, when they would go down to the water.

They got the paper, which further confirmed the death, and even had recorded Anne's last words to him about hanging like a dog. Jack asked if that was a quote from something, and Anne said she'd come up with it herself. This pleased Jack for some reason. It was a good line--he'd always had a love for the dramatic.

When it was time they didn’t run into any trouble. The night was warm and quiet and dark except for the gold gleam of lantern light spilling out onto the jetty.

There were a few guards there, patrolling beside the water. Anne got two while Jack took care of the other. Once this was accomplished, they prowled down the dark deserted jetty looking for a suitable boat to steal.

“Never asked. How’s it feel to be dead,” Anne muttered.

“Much better than I’d expected,” Jack replied. He stroked his cheeks, hoping fervently that his sideburns and mustache would grow back soon. “Charles will be pleased. Now all three of us from the _Ranger_ can be ghosts together.”

Anne wrinkled her nose at him. “I ain’t dead. Listed as missing, remember? Said so in the paper. ‘Sides, Nassau is already too full o’ ghosts. Got you and Vane, man who ain’t Flint and his two Hamiltons. Never understood how she did it. Must be a witch like they said.”

“Right.” Jack rubbed his skin where his mustache should be. “Actually now that I think about it Charles will be very upset if news of my death reaches Nassau before I do.”

“Max’d be upset too, hearing you got hanged,” Anne muttered. “I'll write a letter, not mention any names, but they'll get it. We may get there before the letter does though.”

They had stopped before a small craft with one sail, suitable for a pair of sailors as long as the winds were favorable. It would do, since they only required it's use for a short trip to the nearby town where Read had been transported.

“Hmm.”

Jack wasn’t listening anymore, and Anne seemed to notice this.

“What,” she asked, cocking her head at him.

Jack sighed deeply. “It’s bittersweet, don’t you think?” He furrowed his brows. “It’s just...I think I should have liked to be part of a few more stories before the end.”

Anne was shaking her head at him. He couldn't see her face but he could guess at her expression. “Think about it this way,” she said quietly, with some humor in her voice, “not a lot of men get to know how they're remembered after they die. Got a rare opportunity, way I look at it.”

Jack’s eyes lit. He grinned at her in the darkness, his heart ablaze. She had never cared about how her name was remembered after she was gone, but she knew how much it meant to Jack. “You’re quite right, darling.”

Anne untied the mooring line and stepped quietly into the boat. Jack added the pack of stolen food they had acquired on their way through town, and paused, looking at her narrow frame stooping in the shadows as she got them ready to sail. It wasn’t so unlike their first crime together all those years ago when they had committed a few murders, commandeered a small boat and sailed away from imprisonment. Jack smiled, looking at her.

“That’s how it started,” he murmured to himself. “That’s how it’s going to end.”

Anne’s voice shook him out of his reverie. “What the fuck’s taking you so long?”

“Right. Coming.”

Jack climbed into the boat alongside her, and she pushed them away from the dock with her oar. There was one article of clothing he hadn’t traded with the dead man--Jack untied the scarf from his neck and cast it in the bottom of the boat. He caught Anne's smile mirroring his own in the glint of the moonlight as she looked at the scrap of sail: black, with one blade and half a skull visible. Just for luck.


End file.
